US officials tried to lobby against Marine Le Pen election ban, French judge says

A French magistrate has said two Trump administration emissaries approached her seeking to lobby against an election ban on the French far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

Magali Lafourcade, the secretary general of France’s human rights commission (CNCDH), an independent body that advises the government, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) she had reported the content of the meeting to the French foreign ministry immediately, fearing a potential “manipulation of the public debate in France”.

Confirming comments she made to France 5 TV, Lafourcade said she had been very surprised by the tenor of her discussion with the US advisers in Paris last May, when they steered the conversation on to French judges’ sentencing of Le Pen in 2025 after she was found guilty of the embezzlement of European parliament funds.

After a nine-week trial in Paris, judges ruled last March that Le Pen had been at the heart of an extensive and long-running fake jobs scam at the European parliament, and banned her from running for public office for five years with immediate effect.

Le Pen, 57, who leads the anti-immigration National Rally (RN), had been considered a lead contender for next year’s presidential election until her sentence. She also received a four-year prison term, with two years suspended and two to be served outside jail with an electronic bracelet. She was ordered to pay a €100,000 (£87,000) fine.

Le Pen appealed alongside 10 of the 24 party members who were convicted last year. She denied wrongdoing and is appearing in court in Paris on a fresh trial as she seeks to overturn her conviction and sentence. She told the court on Wednesday that she had always acted in good faith.

Lafourcade told AFP she had met Samuel D Samson and Christopher J Anderson last May. They are advisers for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL), which is part of the Department of State. She said they had been seeking “elements to support a theory that could have, perhaps, served to support a disinformation or manipulation of the public debate in France”.

Lafourcade said she had tried to explain the French judicial process, but that the two men “were convinced it was a political trial that aimed to remove [Le Pen] from the presidential race or to place a ban on her for purely political reasons”.

She said they felt Le Pen had been unfairly treated and was victim of a “political conviction”, and that they had sought elements to support that view.

Lafourcade, who is not involved in the Le Pen case, said she was troubled because this was not the type of conversation that “should happen with allies”.

She said she had sensed that it could be seen as a form of interference, so immediately reported the conversation to the foreign ministry, “which is something I never do, as we are an independent institution and don’t report the exchanges we have with diplomats”.

She said the foreign ministry, which has not commented, had told her it would take her report very seriously.

The Department of State has also been approached for comment.

The DRL said on X in June: “On a recent trip to Paris, DRL met with French officials, political parties, and other stakeholders to reaffirm a shared commitment to free speech, democratic choice, and religious freedom. We firmly believe our partnership with France, our first and oldest Ally, is stronger when we uphold these foundational principles. Echoing @POTUS, we are concerned by those in Europe ‘using lawfare to silence free speech and censor their political opponent[s].’”

Samson, a recent college graduate appointed as senior adviser under the new Trump administration, had recommended last year that his bureau’s leadership use funds earmarked by Congress for foreign assistance to support projects including the resettlement of Afrikaners to the US and Le Pen’s legal defence. It is not clear whether the DRL’s leadership adopted his recommendations.

Samson, one of a number of young conservatives to rise under the Trump administration, reflects the White House’s changing priorities for foreign assistance. He wrote a controversial post on the Department of State’s Substack page titled The Need for Civilizational Allies in Europe, in which he also criticised the labelling of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland as an extremist organisation, saying this “environment also restricts Europe’s elections”.

Le Pen’s sentence prompted anger among political figures on the international populist right. Trump called it a “witch-hunt” by “European leftists”.

Le Pen had attacked what she called a “tyranny of judges” who she said wanted to stop her running in a presidential race she said she could otherwise win.

She told La Tribune Dimanche this month that whatever the outcome, her party would dominate and its “ideas will survive”. If she is unable to run for the presidency for a fourth time next year, she will be replaced by her young protege and party president, Jordan Bardella.

The German magazine Der Spiegel has reported that Trump officials held internal discussions about sanctioning French prosecutors and judges involved in last year’s trial and sentencing of Le Pen. The Department of State said it was a “fake story”.

The president of the Paris judicial court, Peimane Ghaleh-Marzban, said this month that any move against a French judge would “constitute an unacceptable and intolerable interference in the internal affairs of our country”.

The French government spokesperson, Maud Bregeon, said this month that there was no proof of any international interference, but that the government would remain vigilant.